“If you were on the Moon, which has no atmosphere, the sky would be black both night and day.”      -The StarChild Team at NASA

LatchKey Gallery is pleased to present A Muffled Sound Underwater, an exhibition that critically engages the cultural and historical perceptions of the color black through the lens of abstraction and how these preconceived notions directly/indirectly transfer to blackness.

The exhibition is a culmination of a three-year investigation between Alteronce Gumby and Tariku Shiferaw whose visual language echo a parallel in their use of color and abstraction to discuss culture. Through their analysis, Gumby and Shiferaw bring together artists Dominique Duroseau, Torkwase Dyson, Tsedaye Makonnen and MMarvin Touré whose work share a commonality in relation to the color black or to the oppositional disposition of Blackness in multiple western societies. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue produced by LatchKey Gallery with an essay by Niama Safia Sandy.

An iteration of the exhibition will continue to Mehari Sequar Gallery in collaboration with the Smithsonian Museum in June, 2020.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The color black has been perceived in many ways throughout different cultures. To some, it’s a void, an abyss, a blackhole in which everything gets lost. It’s fearsome. It is the night. To others, it’s the color of beauty, wisdom, strength, and pain. It attracts heat. It is the color through which the African American culture is conceptualized and simultaneously “Othered.” Fred Moten describes Blackness as a form of radicalism, yet it is muffled as an underwater sound. Perhaps, silencing such loud and radical sound is only logical to those who don’t feel the syncopated rhythm of blackness echoing through the depths of the dark universe. 

Such vibration hits differently beyond the boundaries of cultures within the United States - it is habitually tied in with the misconception of danger or evil. A curse, even. Normality is a societal construct, where perception is skewed against a tone that shines dark-blue in the moonlight. Blackness only becomes a subject matter when in opposition yet transcends melancholy amidst kindred spirits. There is no gaze that’s not oppositional in Western society, where Blackness becomes the object of spectacle.” - Alteronce Gumby, Marvin Touré, and Tariku Shiferaw.